Westlands Solar Park (WSP) on more than 20,000 acres in California, US is moving forward with the owner – real estate and infrastructure firm CIM Group – saying the project has entered construction on site. While phase I targets 250 MW Aquamarine Solar PV Project, the eventual capacity that the group expects the park to have could exceed 2.7 GW.
This, the company claims, makes it one among the world's largest permitted solar parks and the largest in North America.
Management says the park is planned to come up in phases in Joaquin Valley in western Fresno and Kings Counties on selenium-contaminated and drainage-impaired farmland repurposed for clean energy development. It will generate power to 'meet the needs of public and private utilities and other energy consumers'.
For the 250 MW Aquamarine project, the company says all entitlement and conditional use approvals are in place along with an environmental impact review. Of this 250 MW, it is contracted to sell power generated by 50 MW under phase I to local electricity supplier to the cities of Davis and Woodland and some portions of Yolo County, Valley Clean Energy Alliance by late 2021.
CIM Group says the Aquamarine project was selected by the utility following a competitive solicitation process. WSP is one of the few renewable energy zones identified as Competitive Renewable Energy Zone (CREZ) through the Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI) process, the group claims.
Along with generating clean energy jobs for the massive project, CIM says WSP when completely operational will contribute the state's renewable energy mandate for carbon-free energy enough to provide clean energy to more than 1,200,000 homes.
In 2016 CIM completed a 2 MW pilot project at WSP with the Anaheim Public Utility as the off-taker.